To aid in observing the surrounding environment of a vehicle, rear-view mirrors, an astern-running radar, a video system and/or the like are often provided on motorized vehicles such as cars, trucks and buses.
Rear-view mirrors reflect the conditions behind, beside and under the vehicles so that the driver can clearly know about the conditions indirectly through these rear-view mirrors, thus expanding the field of view for the driver. A disadvantage of the rear-view mirrors is the existence of blind area of view as well as a dazzled feeling caused when the light from head lights of a vehicle behind is reflected by rear-view mirrors of the subject vehicle while driving in the evening, thereby hazarding the driving safety. Furthermore, the rear-view mirrors fail to correctly reflect the actual situation lower behind the vehicle when astern-driving.
An astern-running radar system is a safety assistant apparatus used in parking or astern-driving, and can inform the driver of the conditions of the surrounding obstacles with a sound or with a screen display that is more intuitive. However, the astern-running radar system is also prone to cause the problem of visually blind area. Due to the installation position of a radar probe, the astern-running radar will fail to function when the obstacles behind the vehicle are over high, overflow or their angles are beyond the detecting range of the probe.
A video system employs cameras mounted on both sides and the rear portion as well as other portions of the vehicle, and a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen inside the vehicle, thus enabling a clear display of images of the surrounding environment of vehicle filmed by the cameras on the LCD screen. For example, Utility Model Announcement No. CN201074544Y, which was announced the granting of patent right on Jul. 15, 2009 and entitled “an on-vehicle rear-view system”, discloses an on-vehicle rear-view system comprising a LCD screen and a plurality of cameras, both of which are connected to a controller to realize a multi-channel video input. The LCD screen clearly displays images and the controller is used for switching the displayed pictures. A disadvantage of this on-vehicle rear-view system lies in that the image displayed on the display screen each time is a two-dimensional image filmed by a single camera, or that the images displayed on each display portion of the display screen each time is a two-dimensional image filmed by a single camera. An illusion of distance feeling on the objects of the two-dimensional images is caused by a combination of lights and shadows. Actually, the distance between a vehicle and an object sensed from the two-dimensional image display is incorrect.
Therefore, embodiments of the invention provide a video system which can clearly and actually display the surrounding environment of vehicle, especially display a three-dimensional realistic sense of distance between the vehicle and surrounding environment, thus facilitating astern-running, parking and other operations associated with the surrounding environment of vehicle, which need to be addressed in the field.
At least one objective of the invention is to provide an on-vehicle three-dimensional video system that eliminates the above disadvantages of the prior art. In addition, other objectives, desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.